Queen of Love

“Aya Sugiya. I am related to Ms. Liu.”

“Ah! You are…” The man, who was probably gayer than half the bars in Shinjuku, blushed. God. Here we go. No wonder Genevieve didn’t want to be here today. Every time someone recognized her name, they imagined her masturbating. Gay, straight, you’ve probably looked it up by now. Aya sucked in her cheeks and attempted to maintain decorum. “Anyway, I own the bar downstairs. I’ve been trying to contact Ms. Liu for a few days. We’ve never formally met, but there’s an issue with the water in our tap. Every time I’ve tried to fill out the new maintenance form, everything is in either Chinese or English and…” He scratched his head. “I don’t speak either. Only Japanese.”

Aya nodded toward Nyla, who waved her away. “I’ll go take a look and help you fill out the form in English. I’m sure it’s being updated to include Japanese.” It better be. She would talk to Genevieve about it later. One of many things to talk about. Both she and Nyla were going over to Genevieve’s after the interviews to discuss them with the owner.

She followed Toumo down to the first-floor bar, a place she recognized from her long-term wanderings of Shinjuku Ni-chome. At one time, Bedfellows was as synonymous with gay dating as Ladylike. I’ve picked up girls in Ladylike and made out with them in front of Bedfellows. Every once in a while, a drunken man would whistle for her. Life was simple then.

She had never been inside, though, and when she stepped through the sliding front door, she discovered a bar that was a blast from the 2000s past.

Toumo showed her the strangely dark water coming out of the main faucet. He was also keen to show her equally awkward findings in the employee bathroom, which was a small water closet with a rickety sink above the toilet. Really, really a blast from the past. Like straight out of Aya’s grandmother’s house out in the countryside.

The bar owner brought up the maintenance form linked on Genevieve’s property management website. He was correct in that the form was only available in Chinese and English, two languages he was afraid of screwing up. As she helped him navigate the English portal, he expressed his thanks… and gave her some more opinions.

“It’s been difficult, you know. Being bought out by foreign interests.” He stood behind the bar. He was apparently the only person on duty that day, although the bar wasn’t set to accept customers for another few hours. “I’ve owned this place for seven years. Bought it from the guy who founded it twenty years ago. You ever go to Ladylike? Real shame what happened there. The owner was a bit of a bitch, but the employees were solid.”

Aya curtly nodded. “Don’t know much about the old owner, but it was a nice place to hang out on a Saturday night. I hear they closed because of the pandemic.”

“Almost got us, too, but it was a real death knell for them. That place was dead even before the pandemic. Pretty much only a couple of lesbian bars around here are still kicking once or twice a week. If that!”

“It’s been difficult to find places to hang out. Ms. Liu is putting a lot of marketing into this building.” Aya didn’t know why she kept talking about it to this stranger. Perhaps it was their common experiences being gay in Japan. Maybe it was their mutual history of coming to this neighborhood during their uncertain youths. Sometimes you click with people you’ve never met before. Didn’t matter their gender or sexuality. If someone hung out in Shinjuku long enough, they learned to make friends with people completely unlike themselves. “She’s committed to bringing in tourists once that opens up again, too.”

She expected that to placate Toumo, but all it did was make him scrunch his nose and twitch the corner of his mouth. “Gaijin? Who needs more of them around here? Best thing about the pandemic was not having to deal with big-mouthed Westerners and Chinese who can’t keep their hands to themselves.”

“Uh…I don’t know what goes on in the gay bars.”

“I mean, it’s bad enough this building was sold to a Chinese person already. I don’t care if she’s queer. It’s a pain in the ass to deal with it, and I don’t trust them to not jack up the rent because all they care about is profits. You think I can afford to have higher rent? Yeah, right. I operate in the red for half the year! You think I get in the black because of tourists? Gaijin? They can kiss my ass. I’m tired of having to kick half of them out. Also tired of reading the reviews on Google where they all tell each other to not come here because it’s not ‘foreigner-friendly.’ Who said we wanted them to begin with?”

I’ve got a live one here. Xenophobia was as rampant in the LGBT community as it was in any other. There was a reason some of the other lesbian bars stayed under the radar and paid to not be indexed across the English-speaking internet. That wasn’t novel for gay bars, either. Japan is full of exclusive bars and clubs. Aya never really thought about it until she heard weird rants like Toumo’s. Of course, she shouldn’t go to the karaoke bar outside of her parents’ house – it was for the local old men! Neither should she patron the izakaya down the street from her own apartment. That was a known wrestler fan hangout. When most bars in Tokyo only had ten seats available at any time, they were selective about who they let in. She didn’t know what Genevieve planned to do about it should Mango’s become famous. She’s focused on making her money back right now. That meant attracting locals to the bar. Plus the tourists, once that was open again.

“I actually thought you would be excited about a new income stream.” Aya crossed her arms as if that would build a barrier between her and Toumo. “Dealing with out of towners of any kind can be rough, but that’s also the nature of the business, is it not?”

He scoffed. “Whatever, shou ga nai, ne? If they come, they come. I simply don’t want to deal with all this foreign Chinese money coming in here. When the locals aren’t running things anymore, what even is the point? Is it even Tokyo anymore? You telling me you don’t think about these things, honey?”

The fact he dropped that English affection on her was not lost on Aya. “Your new landlady is from Singapore, not China,” she corrected.

“That’s right. I forgot. There’s totally a difference.”

“It’s a completely different part of the continent.”

“It’s the same attitudes. You think I don’t know Singapore has more millionaires than anywhere else in the world? That place is crazy.”

“You make it sound like your ex is Singaporean.”

“Ha! Pretty soon yours will be, too.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You think I don’t know who you are? You’re Ms. Liu’s girlfriend. The one in the press right now because of those naughty pictures found in the hack. Hey, don’t look at me like that,” Toumo quickly said. “I don’t go looking for that stuff. I can’t help it if that’s what everyone’s talking about. You know, she’s not gonna be loyal to you. These foreigners never are. They come in, they have their fun, then they go back to wherever they came from and forget all about the people they left behind. Maybe my exes aren’t from Singapore, but I’ve dated around, honey. Korea, Philippines, Canada, UK… they’re all the same. Even worse if they learn some Japanese like it’s a fuckin’ party trick. I don’t know how you don’t see it. What, you so far up her ass you think you’re seeing her golden heart?”

Anger pricked Aya right in the spine, but she knew propriety was in order if she wasn’t to anger Genevieve with a response that might lose her a tenant. “I’d prefer if you stayed out of our relationship. None of that is your concern with getting your water fixed.”

“Sou, sou. Don’t let me keep you from your fancy rich Singaporean girlfriend. I’m sure she has nothing but good things in store for all of us longstanding institutions.”

“I have a stake in it, too, you know. I’ve been coming here for most of my life. I grew up in Saitama. As soon as I turned twenty, I was riding the train into Tokyo on the weekends to meet girls and feel like I was normal for once.” She took a step closer to the bar. “I’ve dated plenty of Japanese girls. I’ve also dated quite a few foreigners over the years. The only difference I’ve ever seen is cultural, and even that is a highly personal thing. Get out of your bubble, dude. I don’t know who broke your heart, but don’t take it out on your landlady, or her girlfriend for that matter. Damn. Heaven forbid we get some people coming back through here, huh? Or do you get some perverse joy out of seeing yet another girl bar close?”

“Hey, now, I never said…”

“Because if you want to play the stereotype game, I’ve got quite a few chips on my shoulders about you men and how you’ve made lives harder around here. Do you know how many of my friends never wanted to come around here because it would be crawling with drunks? Gay, straight, it doesn’t matter – I’ve been groped by both. Hell, the last time a guy felt me up, it was right outside your bar and he swore up and down he thought I was some young kitten looking for his first time. Weird. Never seen any of you guys with a haircut half as nice as mine.”